Outlets has become a constant success in the retail industry, and all signs are that it continues to function well. Compared with the situation two years ago, the data of North America's outlets industry has increased in all aspects, including the number of outlets planned to open, the increased rentable area, the developers entering the industry, as well as the rent and sales. In terms of sales and leasable area, the North American outlets market still has great growth potential.

In the past four years alone, from the beginning of 2012 to the end of this year, the North American outlets market has opened 41 new projects, adding nearly 1.3935 million square meters of rentable area. And the industry is still strong. Next, there will be about 36 portfolios, and about 60 outlets will be developed and expanded. This frenzied growth is noteworthy for the North American market, which currently has only 215 outlets. Looking back, it has been 45 years since the first outlets appeared in the United States in 1870, during which 455 outlets have been launched, but only 215 remain so far. Why did the other 240 outlets disappear? The store rental rate must not be less than 50%, which is one of the criteria for judging outlets (excluding restaurants and temporary stores) when VRN counts the number of outlets in North America every year. Therefore, it can be seen that although there are many outlets projects entering the market in the past two years, the growth of the total number of projects in the industry as a whole is not obvious.

The data of VRN shows that: the number of outlets projects has increased from 201 in 2013 to 215; the total leasable area of the industry has increased from 2 In 2013, 7.3393 million square meters increased to 7.7574 million square meters, an increase of 418100 square meters. The total sales volume of the industry was 4.56 billion US dollars, an increase of 360 million US dollars compared with 2013. The average sales volume of outlets in 2013 was 532 US dollars / square foot (3607.63 yuan / square meter). The average sales volume of top 20 outlets was 999 US dollars / square foot (about 6774.98 yuan / square meter) However, the industry is booming at present, but this data is still relatively conservative compared with the crazy expansion (29 projects open every year on average) in 1986-1995. Up to now, only 88 of the 293 outlets projects have survived, and their average rentable area has tripled from 13000 square meters to 26000 square meters.

More interesting is the portrayal of the ownership of the outlets project. At the end of 2013, there were only five developers with a total leasable area of 1 million square feet (about 93000 square meters) or more, and they had 136 outlets with a total leasable area of 4.45 million square meters. In other words, these 5 developers occupy 2/3 of the North American outlets market. Now, the number has become eight, with 165 outlets with a total leasable area of 6.689 million square meters, accounting for 77% of projects and 86% of leasable areas in North America. It can be seen from the table that in addition to Simon, Tanger factory outlet center, Craig Realty Group and horizon group properties, which have always occupied half of outlets in North America, the old department store Taubman center also began to enter the outlets market, and the other several are new real estate developers. There are more and more ownership mergers in North America's outlets industry, and fewer new developers entering the industry. The number of developers with only one project rose from 47 in 2013 to 51 this year. On the contrary, there are more and more cooperative development projects in the industry, which have made a qualitative leap in the past two years. In 2013, only 8 joint ventures developed 12 projects in total, and this year, 20 joint ventures developed 27 projects in total.

In 2016-2018, there are not a few outlets planned to expand, and the area is quite large, with an average expansion of 150000 square feet (about 13900 square meters). In 2016, there were 26 outlets projects planned to open, but it is clear that these projects cannot all be successfully opened. In terms of investment attraction alone, the brand starts to control the number of stores, and also evaluates the site selection and operation ability of the project. In the next few years, if the major outlets are able to play a good set of cards, we can almost be sure that the North American outlets market will continue to maintain the upward momentum far beyond shopping centers and department stores.